Charles Xavier gasped slowly as bone rebuilt in his back, and them important nerves started weaving together. Of course, that just started the mother of all Charlie Horses as his legs suddenly started receiving signals again after all this time.

“I can give her not only a human perspective, with us having no skin in the game, but marking those both affected by and profiting from such things,” he agreed thoughtfully.

“Moreover, it’s an empire, which means it is calcifying. It needs to be shaken up, on many levels, and truly start making use of its many citizens and worlds. It will be a test of loyalty and of greatness, but if it succeeds, the Shi’ar will again be on a great road, and perhaps make it past being a mere empire held together by strength some time in the future.”

“We can only see,” he mused, doubtless thinking much the same. This very incident highlighted the dangers of an Imperial family ruling all, when one person could not possibly truly control a galactic empire. Too many areas fell into darkness. “Anything specific you are recommending?” he asked archly.

“Conceal the fact you can move. Use the excuse to have a very powerful fighting instrument always available.” I gestured at his hoverchair. “If you truly put your mind and those of the artisans of the imperial family to it, that chair can become something truly dangerous and helpful to the pair of you.

“There are both scientific and psionic disciplines that would allow you to disguise yourself marvelously, and which you can use to train yourself physically without others knowing. The fact that the Imperial Consort is out and about and nobody knows where could be quite amusing.”

He smiled despite himself. “And very helpful to Lilandra,” he agreed. “Anything else?”

“Scott has a little brother who was born in the Shi’ar Imperial Court.” Xavier blinked, and stared at me in shock. “By tradition, that makes him a member of the Imperial Family, so he has been raised in the Imperial Palace. In short, you are not going to be the first human to dwell there.

“His given name is Gabriel Summers, but I believe they gave him a name which corresponds to ‘Vulcan’ in Shi’ar.” My Vaccine floated up. “Using his new influence with the Empress, and the fact he’s the boy’s father, Corsair dug up the Shi’ar’s files on him.”

Xavier reached up and read through the files quickly and intently, his breathing sharp and intense as lines of regrowing muscle began to slither down his legs.

“Truly a Summers brother,” Xavier murmured, shaking his head almost in disbelief. “An energy manipulator with this level of talent...”

“Scott surpasses him in endurance, Alex in explosive power, and Remy in subtle control... meaning that each have their strengths.” Finding out there was a half-brother of the Summers bloodline around had been another big surprise for Xavier. “Unfortunately, he’s been raised in the Shi’ar imperial family. D’Ken considered him a dangerous but potential pawn, and he’s been basically under house arrest, since he’s not Shi’ar.

“I’d like to introduce him to Red MJ, given that personality profile.”

“The Null swordswoman...?” Xavier trailed off thoughtfully. “Oh, that sounds like a most excellent idea.” If there was one way of breaking great pride at being Powered, it was a Null standing there taking away your strength and beating the crap out of you. “As a matter of fact, there is probably a remarkable market for the services of Nulls in the Empire, I would guess.”

“Patience. Hiring a merc group of Tribal or Russian Nulls isn’t out of the question, I’m guessing, but everything in time. I’ll pass on the request so that a human presence that is not a super-powered angel of death can be seen running around.”

“I did see some of Red MJ’s duels, you know,” he reminded me, handing back my Vaccine.

I could only smile. “There really is something to being a personal student of Sama Rantha, isn’t there?”

“That woman,” he muttered, and shuddered quietly.

“This may be presumptuous, and you might not like the implied spying, but getting a Widow and a Shielder here to work with you would probably be one of the smartest things you could do. They are insanely competent, have no skin in Shi’ar politics, and are awesome team players. Treat them like teammates and not minions, and you’ve got yourself a core of really dynamic competency to work with.”

“That... is true,” he murmured reluctantly, eyes calculating the pros and cons of that. “I would actually find that quite acceptable.”

“I’ll pass it on.”

---------

Technically, first time in space. Technically, first time on an alien world. Definitely first time on an alien starship that wasn’t grounded and converted into an alien base or something.

The others my age who had come along were all starry-eyed, even Nova, who was, I believe, being informed by Comet about the existence of the Xandaran ship in orbit around Terra right now. His status as a Nova Corpsman was also getting him more natural respect as a soldier and peace officer than the motley bunch of humans who looked like random Imperial Guards and acted like excited provincial freebooters who’d never been on a starship before.

With their differences ironed out through application of the all-effective diplomatic instrument of a good pummeling, Gladiator was talking with the gods as equals, although wary of their interests, given his position.

The Shielders were also being treated respectfully, as all of them were also soldiers, and there was nothing more emblematic of defensive soldiers than wearing shields.

As for most of the rest, they were being treated tolerantly, like children, hicks, barbarians, or those relatives you really didn’t want visiting. Given how powerful they were and how well they could fight, barbarian wasn’t so bad a status, really.

“First time in space, Lady Dynamite?” a familiar irreverent voice broke me out of my contemplation of the planet below.

No. “Technically, Mr. Foremost Customer of Apomix Hair Gel.” Despite himself, he checked himself in the reflection off the window/projector screen. “Enjoying yourself among all this alien tech? Purloin any for yourself?”

He kinda looked right and left. “There’s been some talk about purchasing some stuff suitable for our tech level, except our tech level varies so much they really don’t know what to make of it. Take a certain someone’s armor. Even by their standards, it’s pretty good.”

“And it helps that certain Terrans somehow came into possession of a whole lot of Galactic Credits, and that money is still rolling in,” I mused, which shifted the focus from his accomplishments to, well, mine. Power armor in super science civ was not much different from wearing a bulletproof vest, and was basically pay-to-win, with the best armor not something that could be replicated en masse.

It was also shut down so easily that you just didn’t see it unless it had non-electrical power sources, which were deuced hard to come by.

“Might have had Strange’s valet Wong snaffle up some of their technology and store it in a dimensional pocket for later. Had to give him a big credit advance... he’s been talking book exchanges with one of the mystics in the Imperial Guard.”

“Did you get one of their EMP guns? Patriot took out four of them before they could target you.”

“Steve might have mentioned that in passing,” Stark murmured, rolling his eyes only a little. He’d had to keep pretty low to the ground for most of the fighting as a result.

“Smasher wants me to bed him so bad he actually let me inspect his kinetic drivers. I’ve got three upgrades to my Fists I can put in place now.”

“Some of Eric the Red’s outfit, by which I mean pretty much all of it, might just have gone missing in our enthusiasm to deprive him of it. That neural lock projector he had on it got all kinds of rave reviews in Despotic Minions Quarterly.”

“You probably haven’t inspected the suit yet, but look for the mind control tech in it. Probably uses nanites or molmechs or such. Bypassed magnapsium, took control over Havok and Polaris directly. It’s probably really exotic or it would be in more common use. Send it over to me and I’ll start working on a counter to it immediately.”

“Mind-control tech. Ugh. Plasma swords and mass-produced hand-held energy weapons of new designs, too.”

“Yeah, the field arrays on those swords were definitely interesting, and relatively low Isotope usage,” I agreed. “The Shi’ar are getting stagnant, however. Everything was energy projection. No kinetic weapons to speak of.” He nodded agreement despite himself.

“Corsair gave me some preliminary intel on their military, including doctrinal handbooks and gear classifications, if not production methods. They have an obsession with speed and striking power, and being showy and graceful as they do it. Compared to the Kree and Skrull stuff, they don’t have anything we would classify as a beater, and their shielding tends to be lower-end, as they focus on engines and long-range firepower.”

“Lack of strong defensive vessels could be crippling if you have to make a stand,” I noted. “But if you’re doing hunts and raids against lower-tech civilizations or anti-pirate stuff, it’s ideal.”

“They don’t really have any competitors in their own galaxy at the present, and Corsair says they are itching for another fight for the glory of the Empire and stuff. We’re just lucky that we’re too damn far away.”

“Us the lucky ones?” I gave him a wry look. “I think they are effing lucky the Hag can’t take a Stargate to their homeworld and cut the damn thing apart.”

He considered that with pursed lips, and then took a drink of the swirling yellow seltzer stuff in his hand. “You have a point with that,” he agreed after a moment. “Any other tech you’ve managed to appropriate?” he asked with a rogue’s interest.

“Well...” I drawled, and he smiled despite himself. “The volturium they are using in their advanced wiring is in a crystalline pattern which, if we can replicate it, should cut the cost/time of processing it to four sigmas or more in half. The floorium we’re walking above is annealed in a pattern that increases area by thirty percent, can’t believe the Krees and Skrulls aren’t using it. The pattern resonances on their reactor cores are at least a Sigma more efficient than anything I’ve seen so far, and they use a mix of E-gases in their fuel that has to do something, I just can’t see what without being under power. Some of the circuitry designs and layouts in their computers have definite profound meanings to them, although I’ve the feeling they don’t even realize it.”

He was looking down at his feet. “Floorium, of all things,” he mused in a deadpan voice.

“For some reason I couldn’t get a good look at the ship cannons, but the lensing arrays in their ground artillery were pretty unique.”

“Snaffled. I’ll take a look,” he said quickly.

“Get any of the ammunition?” I asked dryly.

“At least a dozen of every different shell,” he nodded. “A portable generator and three different styles of power cells, lost in the explosive attacks of the incoming Terrans...”

“Hover tanks?” I went on. “They had an interesting take on an anti-grav configuration.”

“Too big. Damn, I could’ve ripped out the part and blown the rest up...!” He clenched his fist, but alas.

“Well, Sama did cut one of their ships in half. Who knows what we can get out of that thing,” I mused aloud.

He blinked at me. “Oh, shit. That’s the first Shi’ar ship the High Guard has managed to recover, isn’t it?”

“And you just know Doc Bronze and his lads are crawling all over that thing with their abacuses and slide rules before it doesn’t quite make it to the sun and we chop it up for stuff.”